Sunday, July 24, 2011

It's Getting Hot in Here!

This has been an interesting week. The heat is getting turned up all around us. It feels like everyone I know is feeling this in one way or another. The temperature is rising in many parts of the country, which seems like an apt metaphor for so many of our personal experiences with the stressors increasing. As the pressures increase, we have one responsibility. That is to hold calm center. To hold peace and love in our heart. If we can get ourselves to joy and gratitude all the better! To bring the crisis or troubles we experience as they surface to the Altar of Love in our heart and turn it over to The Divine. Whatever that means for you. Know that we all have loving help just waiting to assist us. All we need to do is ask. Turn it over, release it and wait patiently for the resolution or answers to come.

No matter what happens we have response-ability; that is the ability to respond. In challenging times one of our first responses can be to hold the troubling situation, and/or people in love. To set aside the ego attachments to what is right or wrong, good or bad, up or down. To turn it over to The Divine and ask "Thy will be done for the highest and best of all involved for all our relations and future generations". As my brother very lovingly reminded me many years ago when I was struggling with a difficult situation, "Is it better to be kind, or to be right?". This became my mantra as I moved through a sticky situation with someone who was holding firmly to their version of what was "right". Moving through this was no easy task, in fact, our running joke is that I had a difficult time saying "kind" in response to his question because I was so attached to being "right". Why? Because keeping track of my version of the truth was part of what made me feel sane. I was ego attached to my story, I thought I might perish or somehow be swallowed up if I released it. There was a death as I let go of my version to be kind over being right. It was the death of some of my own self importance and the rebalancing of my ego. As I moved through this, the next step was to ask myself, "What is presenting itself to be healed in me?" To uncover the blocks inside myself which have kept me from feeling the loving, calm, peaceful center. As life is not all roses, butterflies, rainbows and unicorns, we find ourselves facing challenges, in stress and turmoil, which is the reminder that it is time to turn it over. That we are not in charge. That we don't always know what is for everyone's highest and best, no matter what it seems like from our window of perspective.

Pain is part of the human experience and suffering is optional. If we continue to hold on to our version of what is "right" we suffer. As we release our hold on the challenges that come up, as we turn them over, we are able to return to calm center. We may have to remind ourselves to turn the situation over more than once, maybe many times. As fully functioning adults, we are so good at being self reliant and self sufficient that when we turn something over, we will most often take it back. When we find ourselves ruminating on the subject, that is an indicator that we have pulled it back and hello! We can turn it over again. I expect most of us (myself included) will get to do this process again and again and again, maybe even in the same day.

As we turn our troubles, worries and concerns over, we are freed up to hold calm center, to be peaceful, even joy-full. Here is our response-ability, to spread love and joy during challenging times such as these. To brighten someone else's life rather than burden someone else. This is a "we" thing. We are here to assist one another. One of the BEST ways we can do that is to be functional human beings. To take responsibility for our own actions. To first of all do no harm, to take care of ourselves and our loved ones, then spread it out from there. It is important to spread the love and joy, but first we must make room for it in our hearts, then in our homes, moving out through our family, friends and neighbors, then moving on from there. If we all stay in our challenges, holding on to them, muddling through, we are more apt to spread the dis-ease in our hearts like a contagious virus. Would you rather live in a world where we are driving along and living beside and experiencing life surrounded by other humans who are in a peaceful, open hearted place, or surrounded by other humans who are frustrated, overwhelmed, and on edge? Would you rather be an agent of The Divine spreading love, peace and joy, or a victim of circumstances bumbling, rumbling and grumbling along? I choose the former! I choose love. I choose living life fully and spreading love and joy, being kind rather than right, with compassion that not everyone else is ready to do so, even as we all move through our challenges. Simultaneously I have compassion for myself that I am not perfect and I may not always be able to model this all the time.

All of that said we are humans. We are in fact all wounded humans moving through life. Bumping into one another's woundedness is part of the human condition, indeed wounding one another is part of being human. It is how we conduct ourselves as we realize we are bumping into someone else's wound, or as we feel our own wounds activated. This is just an opportunity for healing. I am reminded of the old school emergency fire training: stop, drop and roll. In this case when you find yourself swept into the drama, trauma and stress (the metaphorical house fire, the heat getting turned up) stop, drop and roll it over. Release the issue causing tension and fill your heart with love and compassion.

May you have a blessing filled day, and may you spread love and joy from your calm center.

With Love and Blessings for all our relations and future generations. And so it is.

4 comments:

I love the stop, drop and roll metaphor. It's a phrase we all know by heart and if we can use it in our relationships, if we can stay calm and respond thoughtfully, we can create peace for ourselves and those around us. Great post!

This is a great post. I like that phrase, "Is it better to be kind or right?" I try to use this same sentiment throughout difficult situations in my life. And while I may not always have a kind mindset (not that I'm mean either), I really don't have the ego or drive to prove that I'm right. Sometimes this can be a flaw because I just resign to myself that I know the answer and I may be right, but I'm not interested in defending it to the core. Conflict avoidance? Maybe. But maybe also a calmer outlook on life.